Won't Let You Go
by Emworm
Summary: Snow can't let go of Charming. In Story-Brooke David won't let go of Mary-Margaret. Slight AU- Main Cannon.


Won't Let You Go

She only meant to get the jewels.

She only meant to get the jewels and yet, there she was diving in after a charming prince who had gotten into difficulty because a simple push into the river had turned nearly fatal.

_Please don't die. Please don't die._ Snow begs to herself as she drags them both out of the water and back onto the dry land. He's unconscious and deathly pale when she looks at him. This man, this knight, her Charming cannot die, she won't allow it! Shivering and cold to the bone, she repeats something she was shown as a child pressing down hard on his chest and listening for breath. _Nothing. _Snow tries again and again before finally resorting to pressing her lips to his in a desperate need to save him.

"_Please!" Please come back!" _Snow begs in a carnal whisper feeling like the wife of a soldier who is lost in war. "_Come back to me._"

There is a silence that kills her soul. She's lost a man she barely knew, who caught her in a net and all she can think about is his smile, his laughter, the smugness that she could have spent the next twenty years kissing off his face.

And then she feels him come alive again sputtering against her, the relief is evident in the radiant smile that spreads across Snow White's face as she touches his own.

_"You- you saved me."_ He breathes unable to break away from her gaze. Those wanted posters may have vilified her name but, it was clear to him now, more than ever that she was "_The Fairest of Them All_."

"_Are you okay? Are you hurt?_" Snow gasps unable to stop the worry streaming from her mouth, her heart.

_"Considering- Ugh you pushed me into a river?"_ He quips weakly, feeling his strength slowly returning.

"_I am sorry about that._" She blushes, truly she had not meant to it was just done on adrenaline, on instinct, much like the kiss that Snow prayed he would not remember because she is a bandit and he a prince and it cannot happen.

She can't feel this.

"What are you doing here?" Mary-Margaret says, heart racing at the sight of David Nolan at her door and then relents manners from a mother she can't quite remember kicking in.

"No- I…" She stammers hugging herself and sniffing slightly the remnants of a cold still visible in the dull headache and overblown nose that is as red as Rudolph's'

"I'm sorry- I just- I thought we agreed."

They hadn't. They hadn't agreed anything she had pulled away because too much had happened. He'd hurt her, he'd hurt his wife and yet, still in the depths of his mind they were one and the same. Mary-Margaret Blanchard.

"I heard you were sick and I just- it's pathetic but, I just needed to see with my own eyes that you were alright." And then he betrays himself by finishing the rest of the admission because what else has he got to lose? "That you were _alive_."

_Alive_. Yes, that was the word he used with the warmest tone of fear and love in his voice.

"It's a cold." Mary-Margaret assures unable to stop the smile that comes next.

David's chest rises up and down in a slow breath, she realises that she's moved closer and is ghosting a finger over the faded maroon scar that somehow means so much. Too much.

"I'm glad to hear that." He says honestly.

"_You are?_"

"Of course! Mary-Margaret, I can't just stop caring about you. I can't stop loving you no matter how much you may want me to."

"I wanted you to believe me." Comes from her as cries tears that she has held back for no-one's pride but, her own. Emma's at the station and the last she heard of his soon to be ex-wife a local gym teacher had caught her eye.

"And the fact that you doubted me, after everything. David it hurts."

He can't go back, erase what he's done but, there is one thing he can do.

"MMM." Mary-Margaret squeaks in shock and then hums as she feels the warmth of his lips on hers. Draping her arms around him she pulls him into the apartment and they move in synchronicity.

"Door- Door Door." She breathes hastily before he reluctantly releases her and double bolts it for good measure.

"It's locked." He says thickly and then he resumes his apology.

_"Snow? What's that behind your back?" _He'd stayed for four nights in her cave. The first was at her insistence, he had nearly died and she couldn't run the risk of him catching hypothermia and other reasons that were both abundantly clear to them. The second? That was a night on the run from Regina's hounds, a skinny rabbit and water from a stream barely enough to sustain them. Exhilaration did. _Trust _did and so, when a kiss came on the fourth she knew she had to do something.

"_I made a deal with The Trolls_." She admits producing the pouch giving it to him with burning fingers that ache so much she wants to claw at her own skin. Love makes her want to claw at her own skin because now it _can'_t happen

"_You- got it back_." He is over-joyed and it is the best feeling in the world Snow reasons, it has to be because, without that feeling, she has to acknowledge the other one, his kiss being that. His love.

"_It was the honourable thing to do_." Snow beams _"And besides, you can't get married without this." _

"_No, we can't."_ He chuckles not taking his eyes of her for a second.

"_What did you just say?_"

"_No we can't."_ He says, taking her trembling hands and kissing them softly lingering as she moans at the touch, eyes shining he closes the minimal distance between them and kisses her fully before awaiting a reaction.

"_Charming, you're betrothed._"

"_That's not a refusal."_

She moves away from him. "_It is. It is because I'm on the run and you have a kingdom and she loves you!"_

His face contorts in confusion and then he laughs "_Oh, my darling. No."_

"_I don't understand?"_ She takes slow and careful steps back to him and he holds her wonderfully close.

"_I wasn't born in a palace. I grew up with a kind mother and a drunkard for a father who died when I was six." "We tended the land as best we could and mother hoped I would find a match but, then he came and told me of my brother."_

He continued for as long as it took, until she knew who he was and how much he loved her.

"_David, David, David_." She crooned musically after a moment before ghosting a finger over his scar til he sighed.

"Snow."

"I love you."

The next thing she knows he's swept her up in his arms and is kissing her like she is the very life in his body.

"_Ahahaha. Mmm MA! MA!"_ Snow exclaims, knowing what it feels like to have his ring on her finger later that night.

"_Mmm. Sleep Charming." _ Snow says as they lie together having given into their desires a pile of furs and blankets all that warms them.

"_How can I when you make me so happy?"_

"MMM. David, David David." Mary-Margaret croons as he pulls her sweater off and kisses her neck.

"I love when you say my name like that. Reminds me of…"

"What?" She asks kissing him while multi-tasking with his zipper. They are alone in her bedroom _finally_. She can love David Nolan for as long as she wants and no-one can tell her not to because he's free and yet, she can't shake the feeling as he roams her body, that he's done this before and not just that one time after the picnic.

"You know when I told you…" He tries to find the words but, loses them when she is completely bare with him happily pressed into the mattress with him on top.

"You're so beautiful."

"I bet you say that to all the girls." She blushes, quipping adorably as he tickles her.

"DAVID! AH! Honey stop!" She chuckles, trying to break free but, the lure of the next kiss as they move as one proves too much.

"You're my girl." He punctuates. "My love, my life."

"Charming." She responds as she's said it a thousand times before.

"What did you call me?"

"OH! Charming. You're so charming."

But, something has lit up inside of him and neither of them can let go of it. "Say it again."

"Charming." She obliges and then, it clicks. "Charming!"

They still, as twenty-eight years of memories return to them.

And she cries, reaches and kisses so desperately.

"You're ALIVE!" Snow is shaking as he deepens her every caress. "Emma, she's here."

"Charming she's so beautiful."

He nods rapidly. "You found me. Snow. _Snow, Snow."_

_"Aha_! We found each other!" She nips and tugs and pulls him further into her because it's not enough after 28 long years it's never enough.

An hour and several loving embraces later they are finally at peace. He twirls a tendril of her hair as she states: "You're the hottest grandfather."

"We're not even thirty." He chuckles, laughing at their preserved state.

"I wouldn't change it for the world. Henry believed when no-one else would. Not even us."

"We owe him a very large Christmas."

"I doubt Emma will be so accepting." Snow worried.

"Hey, MA! I love you." He said adoringly. "We will find a way."

"I love you." "Thank you for checking on me "

"Always."


End file.
